On June 22, the Utah Supreme Court unanimously ruled that electronic signatures on petitions are valid.  The decision is Anderson v Bell, 20100237.  It is 15 pages.

As a result, the plaintiff, Farley Anderson, will now appear on the Utah ballot in November as an independent candidate for Governor.  Anderson had argued in the alternative that if electronic signatures are not valid, that the March petition deadline for independent candidates (for office other than President)  is unconstitutionally early.  That argument, if successful, would have permitted him to go get more old-fashioned signatures.  But the Court didn’t decide that issue; there was no need, given the outcome on the validity of his original petition.

The electronic signatures were gathered on Anderson’s campaign web page.

Mary Norwood is an independent candidate for President of the Fulton County, Georgia Commission.  She needs approximately 22,000 signatures by July 13.

When she began petitioning, she was told in writing that she could photocopy her own petition forms, instead of simply using government-furnished petition blanks.  She was also told that her forms could have “Fulton County” pre-printed in the blank that asks for the jurisdiction.

After her volunteers had collected 8,000 signatures using those forms, she was told that her petition sheets are not valid, and that each voter must in his or her own hand-writing write the word “Fulton County” next to that voter’s signature.  On June 21 she filed a lawsuit in state court to recover the 8,000 signatures.  She has hired paid circulators and they are using the government-printed forms.  See this story.  Her lawsuit is Norwood v Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, 2010-cv-18725.  Here is her Complaint and here is the Motion for an Emergency Hearing.  UPDATE:  see this story in the Atlanta Progressive News of June 24.

Fortysix of the fifty states have partisan statewide offices up in 2010.  The only states that have no statewide offices up are Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Of the 46 states that have statewide races, it appears likely that only four states will have no minor party or independent candidates for statewide office on the ballot.  They are Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Washington.

Alabama has no statewide minor party or independent candidates because its petition requirement is so difficult.  Kentucky’s only statewide race is U.S. Senate.  No minor party or independent candidate is petitioning in that race, which requires 5,000 signatures.  New Mexico has three recognized minor parties (Libertarian, Constitution, and Independent Party), but a unique state law says they can’t place nominees on the ballot without a petition signed by 1% of the last vote cast, and none of the minor parties are doing a statewide nominee petition this year.

Finally, Washington state is not expected to have any statewide minor party or independent candidates on the November ballot because the state’s top-two system will block them.

The Libertarian Party, as usual, will have nominees on statewide ballots in more states than any other party besides the Democrats and Republicans.  Libertarians will probably be on the statewide ballot in November 2010 in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.  All of them will have “Libertarian” on the ballot except for Oklahoma, where Richard Prawdzienski, running for Lieutenant Governor, will have “independent” next to his name, because the Libertarian Party is not recognized by Oklahoma.